The Research in Librarianship, Impact Evaluation study refers to two projects supported by the Library and Information Science Research Coalition (LIS). RiLIES1 was completed in July 2011 and explored the extent to which funded librarianship research projects influence library practice in the UK. The project focused particularly on factors that increase or hinder the impact of project outcomes on practice studying the features of five specific research projects.
A number of librarians, library and information science researchers contributed to the study including Evidence Base Research and Evaluation from Birmingham City University with their Evalued toolkit, (http://www.evalued.bcu.ac.uk/) designed to support information services staff in Higher Education Institutions with the evaluation of electronic information services (EIS).
The project findings have generated new insights relating to the roles of research leadership and sponsorship, highlighting preferences for face to face channels for the dissemination of research result and revealing for the first time the role of social media in raising awareness of research. The RiLIES1 project report, enhancing the impact of LIS research projects can be viewed at http://lisresearchcoalition.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/rilies1_report.pdf.
The next phase of the project, RiLIES2 is almost complete and is concerned with the production of a series of outputs that will support the use and execution of research by librarians and information scientists. If you’re interested in finding out more about the RiLIES2 project please view the blog posts on the http://lisresearch.org/rilies-project/.
For further information relating to the LIS Research Coalition please visit http://lisresearch.org/.
Evidence Base Blog 